Temperatures Very Low and Very High

Description

This concise study of extremes of temperature is designed to give beginners in physics greater insight into the mean­ ing of the concept of temperature, how temperatures are measured in all ranges, and where and how the concept of temperature enters into physical discussions. The first two chapters deal with tempera­ ture in macroscopic physics and in statical or microscopic physics. The story of the production and measurement of temperatures near absolute zero is followed by a chapter on the production and measure­ ment of temperatures up to the 50 million degree range. The last chapter goes beyond infinity into the realm of negative temperatures. PUBLISHES FOR THE COMMISSION OH COLLEGE PHYSICS unUtr the General Editorship of EDWARD U. CONDON, bint Institute for Utwatory Astrophysics, University et Colorado, Bouldet ABOUT THIS BOOK: This concise study of extremes of temperature is designed to give beginners in physics greater insight into the mean­ ing of the concept of temperature, how temperatures are measured in all ranges, and where and how the concept of temperature enters into physical discussions. The first two chapters deal with tempera­ ture in macroscopic physics and in statical or microscopic physics. The story of the production and measurement of temperatures near absolute zero is followed by a chapter on the production and measure­ ment of temperatures up to the 50 million degree range. The last chapter goes beyond infinity into the realm of negative temperatures. The Author: MARK W. ZEMANSKY is Professor of Physics at the City College of New York. After receiving his Ph.D. at Columbia in 1927 Professor Zemansky was a National Research Council fellow at Princeton, and a member of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin and the Cryogenic Laboratory at Columbia. A frequent contributor to scientific journals, he is the author of Heat and Thermodynamics, the editor of the section on heat in the Ameri­ can Institute of Physics Handbook, and the co-author of Reso­ nance Radiation and Excited Atoms, College Physics, and Uni­ versity Physics. Preface 1 Temperature Is a Property of Matter 1 The Concept of Temperature, 1; Thermometers, 5; The Es­tablishment of a Temperature Scale, 9; The International Temperature Scale, 15; Heat, a Form of Energy, 16; Iso­thermal and Adiabatic Processes, 18; The Kelvin Tempera­ture Scale, 21 2 Temperature, Entropy, and Disorder 25 Energy and Entropy, 25; The Molecular Point of Viera, 29 3 The Approach to Absolute Zero 37 The Joule-Kelvin Effect, 37; In the Liquid Helium Region, 41; Paramagnetic Salts, 46; Adiabatic Demagnetization, 50; Conversion of Magnetic Temperature to Kelvin Tempera­ture, 55; Superconductivity, 58; Magnetic Refrigerator, 64; The Polarization of Magnetic Nuclei, 64; Production of Still Lower Temperatures by Nuclear Demagnetization, 69; The Third Law of Thermodynamics, 73 4 The Approach toInfiniteTemperature 77 Filaments, Furnaces, and Flames, 73; Planck’s Radiation Law and the Optical Pyrometer, 79; Arcs and Plasmas, 86; Spectral Lines, 90; Shock Waves, 100; Fission of Uranium, 105; Fusion Reactions, 107 5 Beyond Infinity to Negative Temperatures 112 Subsystems, 112; Negative Values of the Kelvin Tempera­ture, 114; Achievement of Negative Temperatures, 118; Thermodynamics at Negative Temperatures, 120 Bibliography 123 Index 125